Abstract [en]

Learning outside the academic institution, or affinity-based informal learning, has been studied by various scholars (e.g., Paul Gee and Henry Jenkins). One place where this type of learning can occur is in online participatory fan culture activities, where fans create, for example, works of literature, films, and translations, as well as comment on one another’s work and teach one another.

In Sweden, very little research on fan culture as a place for collaborative learning has been conducted and existing research has mainly focused on high-school students (Olin-Scheller); therefore, our examination of fan culture activities and learning processes among university students will serve as in important contribution. The general purpose of our project is to find out more about informal learning activities that exist among our own students so that we can then apply that knowledge to our teaching and pedagogical methods as university teachers. We are interested to see how the practitioners themselves experience informal learning activities and how they benefit from these.

As such, a two-step project was designed: first, a questionnaire was distributed to all students of ten language departments at Dalarna University (2432 students). The questionnaire contained questions about the level of awareness of online fan activities and the degree of student participation in these activities. The second part of the project comprised qualitative interviews (in the autumn of 2013) of some of the students who responded to the survey. Here, we examine the kind of fan culture activities that they are consuming and the reasons for their participation. As well, we examine whether they think they have developed any language, cultural, or other skills and knowledge through the communities. In our paper we present the results of this study.